Surf / Boat Fishing Weather and Tide Links
Weather and tides are without question the two most important external factors in your striped bass fishing whether you are surf fishing, boat fishing or fishing from the sand, bridge, inlet or dock! There are very few tide or weather generalities in surf fishing, there are far too many influences on the striped bass, bluefish or weakfish that we seek to fool. But in the most general of terms, surf fishing is more likely to be better when the wind is blowing towards shore - the waves generated create commotion in the surf - and this allows the strong swimming striped bass another couple advantages over the baitfish they are hunting. The striped bass is a strong swimmer with very keen sense - rough and dirty water that easily confuses smaller fish is no challenge to a hungry striper. The only other weather and tide generality that I'll make is that cloud cover and rain will increase your daytime surf fishing striper opportunities many times over bright sunshine. When it's too rough to fish swimming plugs in the surf, try jigs, darters or bottle plugs. If it's too rough for them, try jigs and teasers. If even they are uncontrollable, try fishing bait. A fresh clam or bunker chunk in a recently churned up surf will often take some of the biggest striped bass in the area :-)

StripersOnline Recent and Current Surf Fishing Conditions - This page explains partly how surf fishing is affected by recent weather more so than current weather and gives a couple examples of how. It also explains some weather changes that lead to phenomenal striped bass bites.

Forecasts:

Local Forecast For the coastal Monmouth & Ocean counties in NJ.

Marine Forecast Covers the entire area, from Sandy Hook, NJ to the Delaware Bay and offshore up to 20 miles.

Marine Forecast For Belmar, NJ. The marine forecast can be found on this site by entering any Zip Code in the little box on this most thorough weather page!

Radar Images:

Radar Loop- This shows the rain and cell movements over the past 5 hours. It's a good way to see what's coming and when it's passed.

Radar Summary- This shows the current cloud/rain/storm positions with the direction and speed they are headed.

Satellite Loop- This shows cloud cover and cloud movement...excellent for those full moon nights when you're praying for cloud cover!

Surf Cameras:

• Belmar Surf Cam

• Long Branch/Monmouth Beach Cam- Also, check out the surf goddess each week!

• Point Pleasant-A great, quick surf camera...however, it doesn't update like it is supposed to!

• Avalon Surfcam

Tides:

Sandy Hook Tides- Listed by days high and low tide for each month of the year. For almost all places on the Monmouth and Ocean Counties surf, subtract a half hour from these times to give you a more accurate ocean side time of tide. It varies from 20 minutes to almost 40 minutes, but a half hour is easy to remember and accurate enough for even the fussiest of striper hunters.

Complete Tide Page- This page shows every area from Sandy Hook south to Virginia, with the reference locations listed....very complete, I customized an NOAA page!